Forgiven
by Eldr-Fire
Summary: As the rain falls and the fireflies die around them, two young people sit atop a grassy hill and finally open up to each other... KakaRin oneshot. Not meant to be overly romantic by any means. Kakashi Gaiden spoilers. Please R&R.


I needed a break so I put up this little KakaRin oneshot. I wasn't sure what to put for the genre, so I just slapped on Drama and Romance.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, its characters, or any other related material. I am merely a humble fan seeking to share my love for Kishimoto-sensei's masterpiece. Besides... if _I_ owned Naruto, Kakashi would have many more angsty exposition scenes...

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A gentle breeze danced through the soft night, rippling through the overgrown grass and rustling the leaves on the ancient trees. Fireflies darted in and out of sight, clinging onto the last dregs of summer. The moon was only a night away from its final stage, set high in the black sky and bathing the quiet village of Konoha in its ghostlike beams.

Two young people lay on top of a small hill somewhere outside of the sleeping village, gazing up at the starlit sky. They had been like this for hours— lying beside each other in a restless silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Rin could hear Kakashi's deep, slow breathing, and it soothed her; she was so accustomed to the heavy pants and stolen gasps of battle that it was a pleasant change to hear him in a rare state of relaxation. His eyes were closed as he allowed all of the collected smells and sounds to wash over him, forever imprinting the moment into his memory.

Time passed; eventually, she turned her head toward him. Most of his masked face was hidden by the tall grass, but his silver hair peeked above the swaying blades, almost glinting in the moonlight. Earlier that night, Rin had found Kakashi crouching in front of the Memorial Stone, turning a piece of his father's broken tantou over in his cold hands. When he had noticed her presence, he had dropped the dagger and ran off, but slowly enough for her to catch up. She had half-followed, half-chased him to this hill, and without exchanging any words she laid down a few feet away from where he was lying in the grass.

"Kakashi," Rin said softly, breaking the silence between them, "are you thinking about Obito?"

Kakashi did not indicate that he had heard, remaining in the same position, but Rin knew him well enough to know that he was just processing the question. She waited, wondering if he was even going to answer. Finally, after a time she did not care to measure, Kakashi said slowly, "It's… complicated." When he did not elaborate, Rin turned on her side and propped herself up on her left elbow. "What do you mean?"

Once again, Kakashi did not answer her immediately. His gaze was still fixed on the stars as he contemplated the question. Even though it was taking even longer to answer this question than the last one, Rin did not press him. If he felt like she were pressuring him into giving an answer, he would put up barriers around himself and shield what he was really thinking, what he was really feeling…

By the time Kakashi spoke, the fireflies had lost their flare and were drifting closer to the ground, their lights dim. "I wasn't just… I was thinking of… a lot of things…"

Rin almost sighed, resigning herself to the guessing game she had fallen into. She watched Kakashi in silence for awhile, raising her head up so that she could see him properly. The eye he had been born with was staring almost… helplessly up at the wide, open sky. The position of his eyebrow indicated that he was evidently troubled over something, which came as no surprise… It was the look he always seemed to be wearing when someone caught him off his guard: worried and exposed.

"Were you thinking about your father?" Rin asked quietly, feeling almost ashamed asking. Kakashi did not move; he hesitated, then muttered, "Yeah."

Rin had learned only very recently about the fate of Kakashi's father, the esteemed White Fang of Konoha who had fallen into disgrace when he chose the lives of his comrades over the successful completion of an instrumental mission. Rin had been horrified when Asuma, Kakashi's smoking friend, had told her that Sakumo committed seppuku in his family's home and that an 8-year-old Kakashi had been the one to find him. Kakashi had gotten very, very angry at Asuma for telling her: he had shouted, he had cursed, and he would have resorted to physical violence if Rin had not begged him to stop. Neither of them had spoken since— this was the first time after the incident that the two of them were talking to each other.

"Kakashi… is your father's name on the Memorial Stone?" Rin knew that the Memorial Stone was reserved for shinobi who had died serving the village; however, when it was told to Konoha's youth, the story of Hatake Sakumo always ended with him heroically sacrificing his life to complete a mission. Besides… ever since shortly after Obito's death in Grass Country, Kakashi had been late for every meeting and mission because he had been caught up paying his respects at the Memorial Stone. Rin had never observed the Stone's carvings carefully enough to determine whether or not Obito was the only person close to Kakashi whose name was engraved upon its surface.

"No," Kakashi said simply. The dying light cast by the fireflies was reflected in his eyes, and Rin could see a flicker of emotion in the one she could see… She thought it looked like anger mixed with a little bit of sadness… or perhaps the reverse. "He died on the living room floor, not on a mission." Rin winced; there was definitely a bitter edge to this revealing statement. That uncomfortable silence hung in the air, Kakashi not wanting to go any further but knowing that Rin wanted him to. He coughed, stalling as he made an on-the-spot decision. "My mother's is," he said almost grudgingly, "but it shouldn't have been." Rin waited with bated breath for him to continue; nobody ever mentioned Kakashi's mother. All Rin knew about her was that she was dead.

"She wanted to end it," Kakashi said quietly. His voice was shaking a little more with every word. "I guess she just couldn't contain it any longer, so she gave up." At that point, Kakashi closed his eyes, his brows furrowed as he brought the memories back a few at a time, lest they come in a flood and completely overtake and overwhelm him. "She accepted the most difficult mission offered to her, the mission that could easily cost her her life. She didn't care if she completed the mission, didn't care if she ever saw home again— she just wanted to escape from the shame of the Hatake family… She wanted to forget about my father; all of the things he took with him, and all of the things he left behind." He swallowed, opening his eyes. They were glittering with tears tinted blue in the light of the moon— the fireflies had all disappeared by that time and the stars shone brightly in his wet eyes. "She just wanted to die."

Rin was very cold. She stared at Kakashi with wide, unblinking eyes. The tears collecting at the corners of his eyes slowly tugged at Kakashi's emotional defenses, prying his soul almost lovingly open. He fought them back, fought them back with whatever he had left. Kakashi had not cried in front of anyone for a very long time, and he had been telling himself that if he let go of that twisted emotional stablility he may never get it back.

In the time they had been lying together in the wild grass, dark clouds thick with water had gathered and were now looming above their heads. The moon was partially obscured by their mass, but Rin could still see it reflected in Kakashi's watery black eyes. By the looks of things, he couldn't hold back my longer…

And then, as if it were fate, a single drop of rain fell onto one of his open eyes. It pushed the tears he had been fighting back out of his eyes and down his face, soaking into his mask as they were joined by the droplets of water that the heavens were sprinkling on their corner of the world. Kakashi was trembling; he hadn't cried like this since he was a little kid, and he had never let anyone his own age see him like this.

"Kakashi…" Rin whispered his name softly, but the rain drowned her out. Kakashi's sniffling grew more audible, though, and his body was shaking worse now than it had been all night. His forehead twitched as he tensed his muscles, trying to maintain a stony expression even through his tears. It was no use, however; his resolve broke and his body shook horribly as he let out his racking sobs.

Without pausing to think, Rin threw her arms around Kakashi. She held his head to her chest as he had done for her too many times to count, clutching his silver hair in her soft hands. He continued to weep as if he were a small child, hanging onto Rin as if she would disappear if he were to let her go.

"I can't stand it, Rin," he whispered, his words hard to make out as his tears continued to stream down his face. "Everyone died, everyone left and took a piece of me with them… my father, my mother, O-Obito, sensei…" Kakashi gripped her tightly, gathering the cloth of her tear-soaked shirt in his shaking hands. "Please, Rin… please don't leave me alone… you're all I have left…" Rin waited as he swallowed back a fresh wave of tears, not bothering to even try to hold back her own. "I… I know it's selfish of me, but… everyone else is gone, Rin, and if you died I'd have no one left… I'd be like my mother was, I'd just… without you, Rin, I'd just fade away…"

Tears were still dripping down his face and the rain was still drizzling around them, but he did not continue to cry. He stayed where he was, still shivering a little bit in the warmth of Rin's arms. She unconsciously began to rock him back and forth ever so slightly, similar to how one would soothe a child.

"It's okay," she cooed, rubbing his damp back soothingly. She tried to keep her voice as steady as possible, but it was still riddled with sniffles and the occasional choked sob. "I know how you must feel, Kakashi… You and I really are the only ones left, at least from our childhood…" She swallowed back a tremor, stopping her hand's movements. "But we… we have to stay strong, Kakashi… We can't dwell on the people we've lost b-because… because beating ourselves up over their deaths isn't going to bring them back."

Kakashi released his grip, lifting his head and looking her straight in the eyes for the first time that night. Both of their eyes were red and puffy; Rin's had adopted a determined stability, whereas Kakashi's were wide and overwhelmed. It broke Rin's heart to see that sad, confused look on Kakashi's face, but she plowed on.

"Besides," she said, not breaking her eye contact with Kakashi, "even if the people who were dearest to us are gone, we've made new friends, right? There's Gai, and Asuma, and Genma, and all of the other people we've met… I mean, I'm not saying we should forget the people we loved who died, but it's important to accept and at least move on a little bit, right? After all…" she added quietly, talking to herself as much as Kakashi now, "Obito and sensei and even your father wouldn't want us to live out the rest of our lives mourning the losses of theirs, would they?"

She leaned closer to Kakashi, able to see the jagged lines of the prominent scar running over his left eye very easily even in the dim light. "I think they can see us right now, Kakashi," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked up at the clouds still hovering above their heads, and he followed her gaze. "I think they're watching over us, and they're crying for us."

"Crying for us?" Kakashi asked quietly.

Rin nodded. "They want us to know that they forgive us for everything we blame ourselves for…" She and Kakashi looked back at each other, both of them once again on the verge of tears. "They're trying to tell us that life is too short to waste worrying about the things you can't have back. They lost their lives, but they want us to enjoy the rest of ours."

Kakashi's heart was racing with emotion, his mind a confused mess of thoughts and feelings that he could not give proper names or forms. Before he knew what he was doing, Kakashi had wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to his chest as she had just done for him. He ran his fingers through her hair, squeezing her tightly… And the two of them cried together as the rain petered out around them and the dark clouds began to recede. However, they were not the same as the tears they had shed earlier— these were not just tears of sadness, but tears of forgiveness, of acceptance, of love… It felt as though they were being washed clean; their purifying tears were cleansing them of all of the emotions keeping them rooted in painful memories.

Kakashi and Rin stayed on top of the grassy hill outside of Konoha for the rest of the night, wrapped blissfully in each other's arms. Their undisturbed sleep was peaceful, and for the first time in their lives, they felt released from the shackles of guilt and grief. Finally, as they slept together on that dwindling summer night, they felt forgiven.


End file.
